The Art of Love

By Derek Parker

All sex is here.
Poetry has nothing to learn from prose, as far as eroticism and pornography are concerned. A glance through this book will prove that there’s no aspect of sex – straight, gay and anything in between - which isn’t given full rein: from dressing to undressing, from seduction to near-rape, from foreplay to orgasm.
Men and women have enjoyed fucking since humankind first stood on two legs – and very possibly even earlier than that. And even before the invention of writing they have made up rhymes about that particular pleasure. But the poems don’t just celebrate the pleasure – they show us (as if we didn’t suspect it) that there’s nothing new where sex is concerned.
Time and again, the poet imagines an insatiable mistress. When he has fucked the girl almost to death, the country lover imagines her wanting more: ‘My joys do now begin:/ Oh, dearest, quickly, to’t again.’ And if it was the lover who couldn’t get it up for a third or fourth time, the voracious mistress had her ways of enlivening the recalcitrant cock: ‘the nymph found her pleasure too great to restrain/ And with kindness excessive, she killed me again.’
There really is nothing we can teach our forebears: though sometimes disguised, almost everything a man can or would do with or to a woman – and vice verse – is somewhere in these verses, though perhaps disguised: an eighteenth century poet would have been chary of describing anal sex in so many words, or for instance his desire to ejaculate on his mistress’s breasts – but both cravings are there if you look for them. And the language is often amazingly unrestrained – so frank, indeed, that the poems would sometimes not be published until three centuries after the poet’s death. Finally, the beauty and lovingness of good sex is celebrated on every other page, and its fulfillment:
‘Were the bright day no more to visit us,
Oh, then for ever would I hold thee thus,
Naked, enchained, empty of idle fear,
As the first lovers in the garden were.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Derek Parker
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311941077

Derek Parker

Derek Parker was Educated at Fowey Grammar School, and started his working life as a reporter on The Cornishman, a weekly newspaper in Penzance, going on to become drama critic of the daily Western Morning News in Plymouth. Having made his first radio broadcast at the age of fifteen, he left newspapers to join the staff of TWW, an independent television station in Cardiff, Wales, as announcer, newscaster, scriptwriter, presented and interviewer. From 1960 he worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster. Between 1965 and 1970 he edited Poetry Review, and in 1968 published (as his first prose book) a short biography of Lord Byron. During the 1960s he wrote and introduced innumerable programmes for both the domestic and World Service of the BBC, most of them concerned with the arts. He reviewed television and books for The Times and various periodicals. He has been a member of the Grand Council of the Royal Academy of Dance, and was for many years a member its Executive Committee, for some time as chairman of its Development Committee. He has been chairman of the Radiowriters’ Committee of the Society of Authors, was for two years (1981-2) chairman of its Management Committee, and between 1985 and 2002 edited its journal, The Author. He remains a member of its Council. Between 1969 and 2002 he was a member of the General Committee of the Royal Literary Fund (as Registrar between 1977 and 2002). His publications include: The Fall of Phaethon (poems, 1954); Company of Two (poems, with Paul Casimir, 1955); Beyond Wisdom (verse play, 1957); Byron and his World (1968); The Twelfth Rose (ballet libretto, 1969); The Question of Astrology (1970); The Westcountry (1973); John Donne and his World (1975); Familiar to All: William Lilly and 17th century astrology (1975); Radio: the great years (1977); The Westcountry and the Sea (1980); The Memoirs of Cora Pearl (fiction, as William Blatchford, 1983); Fifteen erotic novels, published anonymously (1988-96); God of the Dance: Vaslav Nijinsky (1988); The Trade of Angels (fiction, 1988); The Royal Academy of Dancing: the first 75 years (1995); Writing Erotic Fiction (1995); Nell Gwyn (2000); Roman Murder Mystery: the true story of Pompilia (2001); Casanova (2002); Benvenuto Cellini (2004); Voltaire (2005); Outback (2008); Banjo Paterson (2009) (2010); Governor Macquarie (2010) He has collaborated with his wife, Julia Parker, on over thirty other books, including The Compleat Astrologer and Parkers’ Astrology.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

All sex is here.

Poetry has nothing to learn from prose, as far as eroticism and pornography are concerned. A glance through this book will prove that there’s no aspect of sex – straight, gay and anything in between - which isn’t given full rein: from dressing to undressing, from seduction to near-rape, from foreplay to orgasm.

Certainly especially in 18th century poetry, there is a certain code which is now and then used. To ‘die’, for instance, is to have an orgasm: to die = to come; to die together = to come together: simultaneous orgasm. The code s easy enough to crack. As far as sexual play is concerned, all pleasures are here – vaginal, oral, anal sex are explored with equal enthusiasm though apart from a couple of poems celebrating flagellation, violence is largely absent: what the poets are saying is, ‘Wow, isn’t sex wonderful?’ and going on to describe its pleasures: how he did this and she did that; how wonderful she looks when she’s naked, and how enthusiastic his erection was; what they did before, during and after . . . It’s as graphic as any prose.

So - this is an anthology of poems about sexual enjoyment. It’s not really necessary to point out that men and women have enjoyed fucking since humankind first stood on two legs – and very possibly even earlier than that. And even before the invention of writing they have made up rhymes about that particular pleasure.

But the poems don’t just celebrate the pleasure – they show us (as if we didn’t suspect it) that there’s nothing new where sex is concerned. Take Ovid’s The Art of Love, for instance, and you find advice on the importance of foreplay, on aiming, at least, for simultaneous orgasm: ‘Raise to her heights the transports of your soul/ And fly united to the happy goal.’ The mistress of Thirsis the shepherd in a poem by Guarini is after the same thing. ‘Die not yet, I pray,’ she says; ‘I’ll die with thee if thou wilt stay.’ Then there’s the problem of premature ejaculation – coming too soon. Rochester writes about it as the cause of an ‘imperfect enjoyment’.

It can’t be said that male poets are free from political incorrectness – on the contrary, this collection is full of it: the poets are almost all male, and take the male point of view – that man is naturally polygamous and should be free to enjoy himself with as many women as he can get into bed: ‘that man is poor/ Who hath but one of many,’ as Herrick puts it. He’s also boastful: ‘You can expect to come nine times in nine minutes,’ the Roman poet told his mistress, Ipsithilla (‘promises, promises’, she no doubt muttered). Nevertheless, more than two thousand years ago Ovid knew that for real pleasure, a man should see that his mistress enjoys herself: ‘Give ´em enjoyment, when the willing dame/ Glows with desires, and burns with equal flame,’ he advises.

Time and again, the poet imagines an insatiable mistress. When he has fucked the girl almost to death, the country lover imagines her wanting more: ‘My joys do now begin:/ Oh, dearest, quickly, to’t again.’ And if it was the lover who couldn’t get it up for a third or fourth time, the voracious mistress had her ways of enlivening the recalcitrant cock: ‘the nymph found her pleasure too great to restrain/ And with kindness excessive, she killed me again.’

If we think it’s only on modern web sites that we find men celebrating child mistresses, that too has been going on for centuries: We may raise our eyebrows, even now, at Sir Charles Sedley’s assertion that a girl is ready for sex at eleven, and at another poet who demands ‘Give me a wench about thirteen/ Already voted to the queen/ of lust and lovers.’ And any suggestion that it is only during the past decade or so that schoolgirls have proved ready for sex may be questioned by Dryden’s fourteen-year-old, crying out: ‘Take me, take me, some of you!’ (though ertainly this was at a time when girls could be married at that age: ‘To keep a maidenhead but till fifteen Is worse than murder’!). Some pubescent girls are dreaming about sex – and waking, cry ‘If dreams be true, then ride I can/I lack nothing but a man.’

Another question that has been discussed for ages is whether women are more tempting when dressed, or when naked, and the poets take both sides, one anonymous poet seeing Charles I’s mistress Nell Gwyn, her bottom ‘rolling from side to side’ and ‘through her drawers the powerful charm descried’. In the same century John Donne comes down decidedly on the other side of the question: ‘Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee,’ while Herrick has already firmly said ‘Give me my mistress as she is/ Dressed in her naked simplicities.’

There really is nothing we can teach our forebears: though sometimes disguised, almost everything a man can or would do with or to a woman – and vice verse – is somewhere in these verses, though perhaps disguised (an eighteenth century poet would have been chary of describing anal sex in so many words, or for instance his desire to ejaculate on his mistress’s breasts – but both cravings are there if you look for them).

Finally, the beauty and lovingness of good sex is celebrated on every other page, and its fulfilment:

‘Were the bright day no more to visit us,

Oh, then for ever would I hold thee thus,

Naked, enchained, empty of idle fear,

As the first lovers in the garden were.’

Enjoy.

D.P.

THE PROFESSIONAL

Automedon (c. Roman Empire)

That neat little Asiatic

acrobat who adopts

the most curious poses

is titillating to the fingertips.

I go for her. Not because

she knows every position

and everywhere to put

her feather hands, but because

she can get my poor withered

cock to stand. Doesn’t mind

the shrunken skin.

She mouths it, teases

and clasps it,

and between her thighs

will warm up a stand

in Hell’s frozen flames.

DEMETRIUS THE FORTUNATE

Demetrius, who teaches our boys their exercises,

Is certainly the lucky one. I dined with him yesterday.

One boy lay across his knees,

Another leaned over his shoulder; one poured wine,

Another served food – and a handsome foursome, too.

I couldn’t help a joke. ‘Tell me,’ I said,

‘You’ve worked out some exercises for the night?’

REFRESHMENT

Asklepiades (320BC - ?)

A mouthful of snow is fine

when summer has dried the mouth.

The airs of spring are fine

to sailors when

winter is past. But finer

is the single sheet over

two lovers as they

sacrifice to Venus.

ALEXIS

Meleager (140BC – 70BC)

At noon

on the street -

Alexis.

Summer had rotted the fruit

to a brown mess,

Summer sun and the boy’s look

Did my business.

Night put out the sun.

Your face devours my dreams.

Others find sleep a downy nest;

mine burns me, taking

the bright shape of your body.

SEDUCED GIRL

Hedylos

With wine and words of love and every vow

He lulled me into bed and closed my eyes,

A sleepy, stupid innocent . . . So now

I dedicate the spoils of my surprise:

The silk that bound my breasts, my virgin zone,

The cherished purity I could not keep.

Goddess, remember we were all alone,

And he was strong – and I was half asleep.

CHARITO

Philodemos (c.110-30 BC)

So Charito has lived for three-score years.

Her thick, dense hair is still jet-black –

The white weight of her breasts needs no support –

Ambrosia breaks in beads on her taut skin –

Sheer lust shines out of her, sheer wanting it.

Lovers not nervous at such open passion:

Here’s one ripened by it for sixty years.

DIALOGUE

‘Hi there.’ ‘Hi yourself.’

‘What’s your name?’ ‘What’s yours?’

‘Look, let’s not get up-tight about this.’

‘Cool.’ ‘Waiting for someone?’

‘I have this regular guy.’

‘What about some chow?’

‘O.K.’ ‘O.K. – er – how much?’

‘I’m promising nothing.’

‘So promise nothing.’ ‘If you get me to bed

leave what you like on the mantelpiece.’

‘O.K. What email address? –

I’ll text one evening.’ ‘I’m on Facebook.’

‘When can you make it?’ ‘Whenever.’

‘I want it now.’ ‘Your place, then."

TRIBUTES

Diodorus Zonas (c.160 BC)

A pomegranate just splitting, a peach just furry,

a fig with wrinkled flesh and juicy bottom,

a purple cluster (thick-berried well of wine),

nuts just skinned from their green peelings – these

the guardian of the fruit lays here for Priapus:

for this single shaft of the wilds, the seed of trees.

WHAT A NIGHT!

Petronius Arbiter (?-66AD)

Good God, what a night that was,

The bed was so soft, and how we clung,

Burning together, lying this way and that,

Our uncontrollable passions

Flowing through our mouths.

If I could only die that way,

I’d say goodbye to the business of living.

DOING, A FILTHY PLEASURE IS

tr Ben Jonson

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short;

And done, we straight repent us of the sport:

Let us not then rush blindly on unto it

Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it –

For lust will languish, and that heat decay.

But thus, thus, keeping endless holiday

Let us together closely lie, and kiss,

There is no labour nor no shame in this;

This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please; never

Can this decay, but is beginning ever.

INSATIABLE WOMEN

Juvenal (1st/2nd century BC)

from The Sixth Satire

tr Hubert Creekmore

Hear what Claudius suffered: when his wife knew he was asleep,

This imperial harlot, without a trace of shame, would creep

From the marriage bed in the palace to seek the pallet of lust

Which she preferred. Attired in a night-cloak, she left with just

One maid: and, with her black hair disguised by a blonde wig, served

In a brothel in which an empty bed was always reserved

For her, with bedclothes reeking still from the last encounter.

There she stood in the door, waiting for men to mount her,

Naked, with nipples gold-tipped, with Lycisca as business name,

And flaunted the womb from which you, O noble Britannicus, came.

She welcomed all comers warmly, and always demanded her pay.

At dawn, when the bawd dismissed his girls, she chose to stay,

The last to close her stall; and still with fire in her womb,

Erect like a man in her heat, she sadly left the room,

Exhausted by dozens of men, but still not satisfied.

Then sooty from smoke of lamps, her sweat-smeared cheeks now dried,

She brought to the palace bed a perfect whorehouse stench.

Why talk of love potions, spells, or poisons brewed to quench

A stepson’s life? These sex-driven women don’t wince

At doing the foulest crimes; and lust is the least of their sins.

Who doesn’t know women who use the athlete’s rub-down oils

And wear fine purple sweat-coats? Who hasn’t seen one with foils

Stabbing out at a post, lunging with shields and shrieks,

Piercing it to the heart, and all with proper technique?

She’s well qualified to blow a trumpet in Flora’s games,

Unless in her heart she considers something more and trains

For the real arena. What modesty can a woman show

Who puts on a helmet and disowns her sex? She loves to go

Into manly pursuits,; but even she wouldn’t choose to be male,

For how paltry are the pleasures of us men! At a sale,

What honour a husband feels, with his wife’s athletic gear,

Sword-belts, gauntlets, shin-guards, put up by an auctioneer!

Or if she leans to a different sort of fight, you’ll see –

Lucky you! – your young wife selling her entire armoury.

These are the girls who perspire in the thinnest of gauzy gowns,

Whose delicate flesh burns even in silk. But notice her sounds

Of grunts and roars as she thrusts a sword, see how she bends

At a helmet’s weight, how coarse and thick the bands that defend

Her thighs! But when at last she drops her armour, then

You can laugh, for there is one male weapon she hasn’t got –

No use her standing up, she has to squat on the pot.

Oh daughters of ancient statesmen, of Lepidus, of the blind

Metellus or Fabius Gurges, what gladiator’s wife could you find

Who ever wore such equipment or panted to vanquish a stump?

The secret rites of the Good Goddess are pretty well known.

When a flute stirs their loins, the maenads of Priapus grown

And howl, in frenzy from music and wine, and toss their hair.

Oh how they burn for fucking, what cries declare

Their throbbing lust, how wet their legs with streaming juices!

Saufeia challenges the pimps’ slave-girls and produces

Such bouncing hips she wins the prize, but in turn must yield;

Medullina’s copious flow is sure to carry the field.

The palm is divided; giving birth would match this finesse.

They’re not pretending, as in a game, and each caress

Is genuine, such as would heat a Priam’s cold blood and fire

A Nestor’s balls. Then inpatient with chafing desire,

They’re females without veneer, and around the ritual den

Rings a cry from every corner: ‘We’re ready! Bring in the men!’

And if the stud is sleeping, the young man’s ordered to wrap

Himself in a robe and hurry over. If he’s not on tap,

They tick off possible slaves, and if there’s no hope of a slave,

Hire a water-carrier. And if they can’t find a man, to save

The day they’ll get a donkey to straddle their itchy behinds.

Oh would that our ancient rites, at least in public shrines,

Were purged of such dissolute acts! But every Hindu and Moor

Knows who that lady lute-player was who, so cock-sure,

Took a penis bigger than both the scrolls that Caesar wrote

Against Cato, into a place which boy-mice, taking note

Of their own balls, flee; where every picture of males,

That opposite sex, is ordered covered well with veils.

In any home where there lives and plays a man avowed

To obscene affairs, his tremulous fingers are endowed

With promise of everything. You’ll find they’re all reprobate

And just the same as queers. But folk let them desecrate

Their food, and sit at their sacred board, and when at last

Some Colocyntha or beaded Chelydon ends his repast

They order the dishes taken out to be smashed instead

Of having them smashed to pieces. So even the low-born head

Of a school for gladiators runs a more decent house

Than yours; he keeps the foul and the clean apart, allows

Not even net-casters to mix with men whose robes show dirt;

And armoured fighters don’t strip in the same room with experts

At the trident, who always battle naked. He never fails

To allow these guys the remotest quarters; and even jails

Do the same. And yet your wife makes you share the cup they use,

With whom a whore, decayed and brown as a corpse, would refuse

To drink the finest of wines. By their advice, on a whim,

Impulsive women marry and get divorced; with them

They lighten boredom and business matters; from them they learn

To twitch their buttocks and thighs and whatever